


old habits

by ironthoughts



Series: the silence that comes across the sky [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Earl Popinjay, Eli Bollingate, Finder Smith - Freeform, Gen, Kord Reynolds - Freeform, Larabie Jenkins, Piecemeal, Tyros Santino, Valentino Altieri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 00:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironthoughts/pseuds/ironthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is funny because Daud thought he would actually retire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	old habits

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ochrelock on Tumblr, who was tickled by the idea of Whalers mildly terrorizing Serkonos. Jenkins, Eli, Tyros, Smith, and Reynolds all belong to [Patho](http://pathopharmacology.tumblr.com). Everyone else but Rulfio is mine.

The vineyard Daud gets is half-dead and overgrown with nettles. The well nearby is clogged with leaf litter and the soil more stone than dirt. He doubts he could grow weeds in this place, much less a crop.

It's exactly what he wants.

The looks on his Whalers' faces are also exactly what he wants; they're finally getting what it meant to follow him here, finally getting the message through their thick skulls. Perhaps now they'll wise up and leave him be. 

Valenti cracks first, falling to his knees with his arms stretched towards the farmhouse.

"It has a  _roof_!" he cries, and everyone starts cheering.

Daud feels his mood sour.

-

It takes a year to repair the farmhouse and clear the plot into something suitable for growing, and even then there's nothing they can coax out of the earth. Jenkins points out the need for a cow to fertilize the crop, upon which Reynolds demands exactly who will milk these fucking cows, he'd like to know, because it's not going to be him.

Daud lets them argue and locks himself in his office - it should be just a room, but the Whalers built it into an office, complete with a space for a library, even, like in Rudshore. He's not sure whether to be irritated or worried that most of the books are the same.

There's a soft  _ftip,_ and Rulfio's standing in front of his desk, arms crossed.

"You may not want this vineyard to actually grow, but the men are glad for the project, and you should at least invest in their efforts."

Daud glowers at him from his seat. "They made the decision to come here. They can live with it."

"This place is  _yours_ ," says Rulfio pointedly. "And so far you've done nothing but scowl whenever someone brings up an idea. They might see it as encouragement, but you and I both know you'd rather have the place rot."

This is not the Rulfio Daud knows from Dunwall.

Rulfio from Dunwall kept his misgivings close. Rulfio from Dunwall spoke in slants and suggestions. 

Rulfio from Dunwall never challenged him.

"Do you really want to pursue this?" says Daud quietly, in a tone that generally precedes slit throats. Something in Rulfio's gaze flinches but hardens at once.

"I'm visiting Rinaldo tomorrow," he says. "He's made a few friends, and one of them should know what to do."

He blinks out of the room, leaving Daud in silence until he hears the  _thunk_ of stakes being driven into the earth. When he looks outside, he sees Jenkins, Eli and Valenti building a fence for an animal pen.

-

Several weeks later, Daud wakes to find a cow outside, along with three goats, one sheep, two pigs, and a sprawling garden by the front steps. There's also a beehive in the tree he'd liked for its quiet desolation.

Reynolds, he notices, is milking the cow with single-minded ferocity.

The place has been quiet as of late, with only two or three Whalers on the plot at any given time, but now they're all here, and  _busy._ At the far edge of the grounds, Bertram and Aleksander are tethering thick globs of mud from the still-clogged well. Tyros and Smith are poring over soil. Valenti and Eli are hammering together some woodwork Daud can't identify; Jenkins is half-fainting from his efforts at the butter churn while Popinjay shakes his head. Nearby Piece shoves a plow through the plots with a cheerful hum, mixing the soil with whatever stuff someone laid down earlier. 

Reynolds is shouting that he is fucking  _done_ with this cow, Tyros, when Rulfio blinks onto the path leading up to the vineyard. Daud turns on him. 

"What have you  _done_?"

"Your job," says Rulfio, unruffled. "To keep spending to a minimum, most of what we've gotten here was bartered. The animals we received from escorting farmers to market from the further towns. Popinjay received most of the new building materials as payment for his medical visits. Valenti found and retrieved the beehive on his own."

He is not dealing with this right now. Daud turns back for his office; Rulfio falls into step alongside him. 

"As for the garden, we were only able to transplant all the flowers this morning. Piece has been receiving them each week as gifts from a farmgirl at the local market."

Daud stops on the inner side of his doorway. What. "You are letting people  _find_ this place?"

Rulfio frowns. "She receives them at the market, Daud. And Piece is Piece. She wouldn't compromise us." He looks over at her, and Daud follows his gaze - the girl's plowed half the plots by now with no signs of tiring. Sensing their gazes, she stops and, catching sight of them, smiles shyly and waves. The sunlight sparkles off the sweat running down her face and turns her expression nigh beatific.

Rulfio looks back to Daud. "Piece was kind enough to help the girl's ailing father with their own plowing, and received our current one as a gift in return. I don't think she knows why her benefactor was so impressed."

At the end of the plot, Piece dances a quick slip jig as she gives the plow a neat turn and starts carving another line, her shoulders bunched in a tight curve of muscle. Rulfio gives Daud a very neutral, very blank stare. "It may very well turn into a security matter, so you might want to talk to her about that."

Daud shuts the door in his face.

-

Rulfio doesn't talk to him much afterwards, but the other Whalers do. All of them. Not all at once, or even all in a day. It's subtle, but by the month's end Daud realizes his hours have become packed with discussing various minutiae with his Whalers. Do you haggle with fruit sellers? What about cobblers? A fisherman laughed at my accent; can you help me fix it? Jenkins wants to know, can men wear this thing too? 

He knows what Rulfio is doing. He knows and he is not giving in. He can see the Whaler in his mind's eye, handing out question topics to the others like their old assignments: "Now each of you must approach your target from your given direction, and strike without hesitation - "

Have you ever gotten stuck in a beehive? Can you threaten someone as a bargaining tactic? I knew that cow was wrong, it's fucking pregnant and there's no other cows around for -  

They never do find the answer to that one. The calf ends up following Reynolds everywhere.

Is this snake poisonous? What is this axe used for? Does it mean anything when a Serkonan girl kisses you on only one cheek?

Outsider's rotten  _teeth._  

"She fancies Piece, Popinjay," Daud grates out, his palms falling to his desk with an exasperated slap. "She fancies her and dreams about sleeping with her somewhere, probably in the old lake ruins or on an Abbey chapel roof."

Popinjay stares. Then he says, very softly, with an expression like a kicked rabbit, "I didn't know that was why being here is painful. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you."

What - oh.  _No._ Daud opens his mouth to stop him there and then, but Popinjay reaches out and puts his hands hesitantly on his. "We all know you aren't happy. We didn't know why and I won't tell anyone. Patient confidentiality. But we all want you to be happy. That's why Valenti brought the beehive."

Valenti, thinks Daud numbly, is going to get a  _long_ talk after this.

Popinjay straightens and bounces on his heels. "Anyway," he says, "I don't think Piece is going to sleep with her. But I'll give her your advice."

-

When Tyros tells him they'll start planting soon, Daud pulls out Bartleby's ledgers and starts looking through the numbers. 

The Rudshore secretary's notes are as neat as he remembers. Everything they've acquired from the first month to the present day, from nails to crockery to window glass, is scrupulously listed, assessed for worth, and categorized. There are even columns to note how the item was obtained, from whom, and where. Some of the entries are unsettling. Some...

"Bartleby," says Daud, finding the other man on the porch, "How is it that all of the fertilizer and soil going into this place is _free_?"

Bartleby rolls his head back to view him. "Some of it came from favors Rinaldo and Rulfio pulled. Some of it was creative use of matter found on the premises."

"And the rest?"

"You can ask Reynolds and Piece," yawns Bartleby. Serkonos has evidently done nothing to bolster his enthusiasm. "They got the rest."

"I know they got the rest. It's in your ledger. What I want to know is  _how_." _  
_

"They know how," Bartleby drones blandly. "Not me. I preferred not to."

Daud sighs and blinks off the porch. 

Piece and Reynolds are setting up the vineyard proper, the two of them easing wooden frames down the lines Tyros drew out earlier. They both straighten as Daud approaches, Reynolds tugging a cigarette out from somewhere while Piece offers a tentative wave. Daud gives them no opportunity for small talk.

"How did you get the soil for the plots?"

They glance at each other. Reynolds shrugs. "Took it from a graveyard," he says.

Daud's stomach hits the dirt and bounces twice. " _What?_ " _  
_

"A graveyard," says Piece, like every field in Serkonos is tilled with corpses. "Tyros and Smith were talking about how Rinaldo said the ground needed more phosphorus and nitrogen, and I remembered that cemeteries have a lot of it. So I asked Reynolds for help to get some dirt."

Daud's done worse things in his life. He's done more worse things in his life than all the Whalers put together. And now oddly enough, he's pretty sure he's outright mortified.

"It wasn't a lawful graveyard," Piece adds timidly, when the silence stretches to uncomfortable lengths. "Reynolds picked a good place."

The Whaler in question takes another drag and exhales smoke. "It was an Abbey graveyard, boss. No harm done."

Daud thinks he may actually kill them.

-

" _This_ is what you're buying, and  _how_ much of it," says Daud, shoving a list in Valenti's hands. "Not one thing more or less. I don't care if it's a gift or if it fell out of the sky. Leave it."

Valenti bobs his head and scuttles off to join Tyros and Eli. Rulfio watches him go with a faint smile. 

"I see Reynolds and Piece are barred from market duty," he says. Daud magnanimously ignores him.

-

When their first shipment of wine's been delivered and everyone's grinning stupidly at each other with accomplishment, Daud waves them all off the vineyard and tells them to go celebrate elsewhere. Rulfio gives him a tired smile, tells him he'll be seeing Rinaldo, and leaves with the rest.

And suddenly, for the first time in two years, the vineyard is silent.

Daud's surprised by how short his gladness for it lasts. He's gotten used to...to _this_  - keeping tabs on his Whalers, overseeing larger tasks, making sure some Whaler or another wasn't off snitching graveyard soil. 

Billie had always kept herself apart from the others too.

Daud stands up abruptly and paces agitatedly for long minutes before blinking briefly outside in frustration. There is no point trying to find where the Whalers may have gone - he'd made it clear they were to celebrate without him - and Rinaldo preferred to know whenever he was visiting.

He'll just have to wait out the evening until they all return.

-

And at some point in the night, Daud wakes to hear voices outside his window.

"...so that this can happen  _every_ year," says someone happily. "For good luck! and to keep the soil healthy."

Cheerful assent, followed by exaggerated shushes and 'boss is  _sleeeeeping_.'

"Wait, wait," says Jenkins' voice, "We're all...very drunk. We should wear uniforms so no one gets lost."

There's an excited chorus of agreements, along with someone saying they've been ironing theirs all year, and Daud drifts back to sleep.

-

The next morning he finds his Whalers - in full uniform, their _Dunwall_ uniforms - scattered across the grounds in varying states of unconsciousness. The air is touched with the smell of blood, but there isn't a drop of it to be seen on either them or their blades. They are, however, stained head to toe in dirt, as if they spent the entire night rolling in it.

Daud scowls down at the mystery, turning scenarios over in his mind until another conundrum presents itself - a very feminine giggle from behind the porch, followed by quick shushes.

Worry curls around him as he blinks over - did they bring back the farmgirl after all? - but it is only Piece, maskless, sitting on the ground with her legs sprawled before her, a hen and a rooster pecking at the dirt by her knees and a blur of chicks scurrying over her pants.

Maybe they had a romp through a farmyard and passed through the chopping blocks, Daud thinks. 

(This is, of course, before Rulfio returns from Rinaldo's place and tells him that the local Abbey had been stormed in the night, and a quick sweep of the vineyard in dark vision reveals the bodies buried six feet below the plots.)

Piece notices him standing nearby and gestures him over. "Look!" she says excitedly, a high pink flush across her cheeks. "Mother, father and fourteen little babies!"

Daud notes the drunkeness in her stare and very gruffly does not smile. The last time Piece had gotten drunk, in Dunwall, she'd stolen a basket of cats.

"Do they have names?" He's learned this is the very least he should ask whenever a new animal appears on the premises. Piece perks, clearly pleased at the question.

"This is Rulfio," she says, lifting up the rooster, a sleek green and black thing with fierce eyes. "Because he's a good father, and scary when he has to be." She cocks her head, frowning. "The resemblance is closest when they're both mad."

Daud makes a note to tell Rulfio - ten years later and the man still gets floored by Piece's outbursts of filial devotion. "And the mother?"

Piece blushes, her smile the brightest he's ever seen it. " _Daud_ ," she announces proudly, and holds up the hen for him to kiss.


End file.
